


Reflections of War

by GuardianLioness



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Connected Vignettes, Fire Emblem AU, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Vignette Collection, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 03:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17014635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianLioness/pseuds/GuardianLioness
Summary: The Paladin army are few in number but strong in heart. When the Last Princess of Altea prepares her troops to storm a Galran fortress commanded by Prince Lotor himself, their chances of success and safety are low. Together, though, together they become something more — and together, they might have a chance at overturning the odds.Or: A medieval fantasy/Fire Emblem AU.





	Reflections of War

**Author's Note:**

> Originally drafted pre-Season 6 for the inaugural issue of [OTPlease](https://fanficzine.tumblr.com)!
> 
> I've long since fallen out of Voltron, but I will never forget the excellent memories and wonderful experiences the fandom gave me! Please be kind to each other. I hope you enjoy!

_ Allura _

It is in times like these that Allura is a river rushing, overlapping its banks. Her quintessence pulses,  _ surges—  _ a static cascade of agitated magic coursing through her body. She is all tension, and her speed breaks the usual flow of her grace, but how else is she supposed to carry herself before a battle? She clutches tighter to the pouch of herbs, purchased from the last village they passed, as she ducks into the medical tent. 

Pidge is already there, counting through piles of yarrow leaves and measuring out drops of precious honey for the poultices they’re sure to need. The young apothecary doesn’t look up as she walks in, and startles when Allura clears her throat.

“Oh, sorry, Allura.” Pidge grins, but it’s lopsided, forced.

“No need to apologize.” Allura slips over to Pidge’s table and sets down the pouch of herbs. “I thought this might be useful.” She seizes on the bag immediately, and the eagerness with which she pulls the drawstring open calms Allura’s roiling magic for a moment.

“Comfrey!” Pidge chirps, pulling out a single leaf to examine and weighing the bag in her other hand. “This is perfect. We were out, and someone is  _ bound _ to break a bone tomorrow.” She puts the leaf back with the others and ties the pouch shut again. “I just wish we had more silver. Honey cleans wounds almost as well, but silver is so much better for burns.”

“I tried to find some, but the Galra army is extracting precious metals from the townsfolk.” Allura sighed, slumping onto the bench by Pidge’s worktable.

“Well, good thing we’re raiding one of their fortresses.”

Allura feels the quintessence in her blood thrum again. Shiro’s battle plan is bare-bones, and they’re not sure that the maps at their disposal are accurate. To think of adding additional objectives to their mission…

“Tomorrow is going to be a good day.” Pidge’s voice trembles. The magic flares, and Allura clenches her fists to keep her hands from spitting sparks.

There’s no malice or carelessness behind the herbalist’s nonchalance. Of course Pidge wants to think of it as a good day. Tomorrow will be the day when she learns if her brother is still alive, and if he is, it will be the day that they rescue him from the clutches of the enemy.

Allura knows this, but that doesn’t make hearing it any easier. In war, there are no good days. Not for the generals of an army.

“I’m going to take care of everyone, Allura.” Her voice is measured, as precise as the herbs she divides into poultices. “You know I’m not just here for Matt. I was chosen.” Pidge’s hand goes to the knife and chain sheathed at her waist. It is one of the five weapons forged by Allura’s father, enchanted with more quintessence than Allura will ever carry in her body, weapons designed to protect the kingdom of Altea.

The weapons choose their wielders, and the forest blade has claimed Pidge for its own.

“I won’t abandon my role, Allura. And I don’t take joy in a fight of this magnitude. I just,” Pidge’s voice breaks. “I just want my brother back.”

Allura feels the crackle of quintessence begin to abate. Pidge is right, and the anxiety she’s feeling isn’t the apothecary’s fault. “We will find him.” They will, no matter what obstacle stands in their way.

Enough families have been broken by Zarkon’s rule.

 

~

_ Coran _

Coran traces the lance point over the whetstone. It’s happening again. War has returned to his world, and there are no warriors left to defend it.

He has seen war before. He has seen the lives it takes. The children — and they are children, even the oldest among them is barely a man — do not know the frigid bite of loss.

Slurry drips from the end of the blade, and Coran closes his eyes. It’s easier not to look than entertain the memory of blood on steel.

His princess deserves better. They all deserve better.

Coran props the weapon’s edge against the stone, checking the beveled angle. He can’t protect them. He is one man; one who has already failed.

He can, however, hone the sword Keith will wield to a perfect battle edge. He can tie clean fletching on the arrows that will fly from Lance’s bow. He can comb through the handful of herbalism scrolls they have left, translating the ancient Altean script into something that Pidge can read.

He cannot shield them, these children who have taken the weight of the world on their shoulders. It wouldn’t be fair of him to try.

He  _ can _ prepare them.

He can be an advisor, he can be a link to the lost culture of their homeland, he can listen, when it gets to be too much — and it  _ will _ become too much, war always does.

He can fight beside them, joints straining with effort as he hefts a javelin, pulls a taut bowstring to his cheek, strikes out with a bloody, bare fist.

Coran’s eyes sting as he lifts the lance, worn and so, so familiar to his grip. He’s still here, still impossibly breathing. Robbed of a noble death with his brothers-in-arms. Robbed of the honor of dying for his king.

But in exchange, he has a chance to fight with his princess, and every moment of service to Allura is a gift. To stand by the jewel-bright souls who have inherited his king’s final gift is a privilege, and to train them is an even greater one. Coran is needed. That is reason enough to remain.

He stands, weapon in hand, and slips past the armory tent canvas. It’s night, but he doesn’t need anything more than the moon to run through his old forms. His stance is precise but rigid. Even the magic that preserved him and Allura for so many years isn’t enough to undo the slow-encroaching stiffness of age.

He’s slower now, yes, but his skills are just as sharp. Experience will make up for the loss of his youth. When they ride into battle, when they storm the fortress where Number Five’s brother is being held, Coran will be just as dangerous as the first time he clashed with the Galra empire.

The greatest honor, the greatest vengeance, is this.

To preserve the memory of Altea, to aid its princess and its heirs, to join them on the field of battle, to think of home with every war cry.

 

~

_ Lotor _

“Fools.” The word tastes like it sounds, thick with idiocy and recklessness. Lotor knows the definition well. He has seen countless officers in his father’s army fall to their own arrogance, their own hubris.

He isn’t about to imitate them.

The Altean princess and her advisors are fools. There is no cover, no distraction that can keep them from the vantage point atop the castle walls, and yet they are coming anyway.

Pity. He’s always wanted an enemy that matches his cunning.

He watches from the ramparts of the fortress as they draw nearer, the bright colors of their clothing and armor stand defiantly against the backdrop of tarnished earth. The last remnants of his mother’s kingdom have come to meet their end at his hands. Lotor will not deny them that gift.

He is no fool, but for a moment he lets himself imagine that he is foolish enough to be dressed in bright hues, standing on the opposite side of the wall, his mother’s magic flowing through his veins. A power that now only his father’s witch wields, and maybe the Altean princess, who stands at the front of her amateur warriors.

“Prepare our defenses,” Lotor says, and a sentry jumps to obey. “We will cut them down here. They cannot make it to my father.”

 

~

_ Shiro _

 

Shiro can’t explain how he’s still standing. The blade at his hip crackles with purple light, it hisses and growls with an enchantment woven by Galran druids. He doesn’t trust it, but it’s all he has, and he cannot,  _ will  _ not, fight with nothing, or worse, leave the younger paladins to fight alone. 

The princess says he should have a sword of obsidian, a weapon forged with her father’s alchemical brilliance. He doesn’t have a jet-black sword. He has half a plan, the questionably placed faith of five children and Coran, and more traumatic memories than he knows how to handle.

He clenches his fists and sets his jaw. He can’t listen to the gnawing void of self-doubt in his stomach. Not now, not when they’re this close to battle.

Half a plan and faith will have to do.

“Lance, get to your position. Stay hidden until we near the edge of your range. Pidge, Keith, you’re with me. And Pidge, I know you’re ready to handle anything, but stick close. I’ve got heavier armor, a longer reach, and a lot more experience.”

“Shiro, I can — ”

“I know you can, Pidge, but it’s just not smart to risk our healer unless we have to. You’re the only failsafe we have.”

She settles, standing down from her position on outraged tiptoe at the logic in his words. Some of the lurching, twisting emptiness in Shiro’s gut unwinds. There’s still a scowl on her rounded face, but she nods in acceptance.

“Allura, do you have enough magic to…?”

The princess shoots him a devious grin, one that he knows is propped up by little more than a gust of hope. That’s all they have now. Hope. “I’ll be fine, Shiro. I’ll get us through.”

“Uh, Shiro, maybe you should send Pidge with me instead.” Hunk pipes up, somehow shuffling with anxiety even dressed in armor like he is. “I know you’re faster, but if Pidge is our backup plan…”

Of course. He’s right. Hunk would be a far better guardian. Hunk stands stalwart when Shiro gives in to the shiver that trails like lightning down his spine, the hunger and desperation to stay alive, to make it to another day in the Galran fighting pits —

Shiro’s free of it now. Free of the prison. He’s not free of its effects.

“Good idea, Hunk.” He pours all of the warmth he can muster into his voice. Hunk is so, so smart, but every twitch and fidget only illuminates his raw nerves. “We’ll go with that. Pidge, you’re trailing Hunk. Lance, see if you can join them when Allura opens a door for us.”

Lance salutes wildly and slips away to find cover. Hunk tenses, bracing himself. Allura’s eyes squeeze shut as light dances beneath her fingertips. Pidge’s eyes alight with anticipation. Keith slouches, his mouth drawn taut, but loosens as Shiro rests a hand on his shoulder.

They’re as ready as they’ll ever be. He draws the Galran longsword from its scabbard.

“On my mark!”

~

_ Lance _

It is the arrows at Lance’s hip that hum with magic, not the bow in his grip. Carved from blue stone that glints with surging quintessence, they sing as he smooths out a new bowstring and loops it into place. They are special, even among the weapons that Allura’s father, the distant and mysterious king, forged to protect his home.

The arrows — they listen to him. They come back to him. It is his skill, his aim that sends them on their deathly path, but they will return to him after they have completed their dark work, tiny comets that will always come home.

The weapons make their music as he hides among the scant foliage, positioning himself to face the oncoming wave of enemies. Lance does not like this part of battle. As an archer, it is his job to hang back, to pick off their enemies from a distance.

Distance. It grates on him.

He has to watch as sword and spear and fiery bolts tear his friends apart while he stands untouched, and from where he is, he can see everything.

Allura is twisted elegantly over her polearm, the tight expression on her face reads tension, not anger. Next to her, light reflects in shifting patterns off of Hunk’s armor as he trembles. Pidge’s short form stands a full two heads shorter than Shiro’s broad shoulders, bobbing as her fingers trace over the thin, golden chain at her waist.

It makes him sick to know that she’s standing side by side with Shiro and Keith. They have no choice. Their numbers are too few to storm the stone parapets without her. She’s strong, but she hasn’t been fighting as long as they have, and she’s their healer. If she falls, there will be no one to patch her up.

If it wasn’t for her brother, Lance wouldn’t understand her courage.

The reverberating howl of a horn from the fortress wall signals the start of battle. The sentries above have spotted them. He breathes and reaches for one of the lilting arrows.

The fletching is cold against his cheek. Its melody pitches as the bowstring draws taut. Eager. It sounds eager.

It doesn’t have to wait long.  

A cascade of fire falls from the ramparts. The gates split open like an anthill, soldiers swarming out. Shiro shouts an order. Allura charges forward, pulsating with blue quintessence light.

The first arrow flies, and Lance feels its magnetic pull strengthen. He waits, firing off one of its siblings before reaching out and calling it back. It tenses, the pressure twisting in his stomach, and then soars back. His fingers snap out and seize it.

A gap between two plates of armor. An exposed neck. An overextension baring unprotected ribs. Target after target materializes in his vision, and, thrumming, he answers them. The sapphire bolts are greeted with screams.

An earth-shattering boom cracks through his focus. He jolts, blinks — and the section of wall closest to him is gone. In its place, a crater of smoldering stones crackles with the shade of Allura’s magic.

It’s time to move. They need him now. If they move behind the walls without him, he’ll be useless.

Lance lunges forward, back bent low, fingers tense, begging the blue-tone arrows to return to him.

Halfway through the no-man’s-land between him and his teammates, he’s struck by a sudden feeling of wrong. His gaze jolts up just as a panicked cry rings out. Pidge.  _ Pidge! _

His fingers have drawn the bowstring before he can think, and shrieking, the arrow thumps into the eye socket of the man whose fingers are curled tightly around Pidge’s neck.

By the time he reaches her side, she claws at her throat with one hand, gasping, but her jade knife is clutched ready in the other. “Nice shot,” she pants, bumping against his elbow.

“Thanks. Now let’s go get your brother!” He grins at her, but the pitched wailing of the shaft still embedded in the fallen soldier’s face reminds him just how close she was to death.

Maybe distance is a good thing. It gives him foresight, time to react. He will take all the space he can get if it lets him watch his friends’ backs.

He reaches for another bolt and follows her through the gap in the wall.

 

~

_ Hunk _

Running in after Pidge and Lance is not Hunk’s first choice of activity for the day. Hunting for ingredients to spice up the camp’s lackluster food? Sure, he’s in. Tweaking armor designs with Coran? Yeah, he’s up to try it. Charging after his best friends, who are violently throwing themselves into danger? No. No, no, _ no _ . He really could do without this.

Hunk bites back a curse and tries to move faster. The plate mail on his shoulders slows him down, leaving him several feet behind them. “Guys! Come on!”

He’s safe, swathed in his metal cocoon, thick armor made of overlapping sheets and hardened edges that keep points and blades from coming anywhere near him. Pidge is not safe, weaving through the churning whirlwind of knives and curses and arrows like a panicked little bird. Lance, at least, has the wisdom to take cover at the corners of the corridor before kneeling to fire off two of his hissing arrows.

They throw themselves past another wave of foes, and Hunk pushes forward, arm out to shield his friends. Blows rattle off of his armor. Every ring of blade on mail makes him wince. The lance in his grip spins, crashing down on a soldier just as a green knife on a gilt chain sinks into the man’s chest. “Stay back, Pidge!” Hunk hisses.

“I know what I’m doing!” she snaps back, and Hunk sets his teeth. Yeah, she can fight. They all can, after what they’ve been through, but that’s not the point. She’s too small to bear the weight of a protective shell like his, and she’s so thin that arrows could shred her like parchment. Lance isn’t much better. He’s strong and nimble, but he needs to move to pull his bow.

They can’t hide. Not like Hunk can, ducking behind a wall of iron ore that wraps around his entire frame. Brave. That’s what they are, brave and  _ stupid _ , diving into the roar of the fray without a second’s hesitation.

Hunk needs his armor. He’s frailer than they are — not physically, but frail of spirit. Frail where it counts. He strikes a Galran warrior with the back of his gauntlet and growls. “Yes, you do, but you’re also small!”

To Lance’s credit, the archer stays behind him, sending an arrow hissing over his shoulder into an enemy’s face, neck, eye.

“Are you underestimating me?” There’s an edge in Pidge’s voice, but Hunk can’t tell if it’s because she’s mad or because she’s just stabbed a man who tried to tack around to his left.

“No, I’m strategizing.”

If he’s going to be a coward, if he’s going to huddle inside his metal shell instead of braving the fight with the rest of them, he’s going to make use of it. If they can’t shield themselves, Hunk will have to handle it.

The weapons rattle uselessly against him. He will stand in the gap and, clinging to his fear,  drive their enemies back.

He will be the armor that they cannot don.

~

_ Pidge _

The Galran army lights their fortress with flames that dance in shades of violet, a deep hue that licks black stone from the ornate the torch sconces. It’s weird, and it’s fascinating, and it’s either magic or some form of herbalism, but Pidge doesn’t even give it a second thought as she bolts past, hand tightening around the hilt of her green blade.

Discovery. Knowledge. Truth-seeking. King Alfor’s knife chose her for how she loves those qualities, but she thinks the dagger will forgive her if she ignores the pull to investigate. It knows what it is like to be drawn to those that are made of the same ore.

Hunk and Lance are just behind her, and she weaves back around them, as ordered, when their enemies resurface. Pidge’s lips crease every time she does. It isn’t a reflection on her strength, and she knows it, but the bitter taste of her own herbs creeps into her mouth whenever they take a blow for her.

Fortunately, they make quick work of their foes, arrows singing, lance point humming, and the thin, golden chain on her knife clinking as she draws it close.

Pidge is so lost in her fervor, she almost misses the cells when they tear through towards the prison. “Here!” Lance shouts to her, and she freezes, rooted to the spot as Lance crouches at a doorframe, taking shots at one guard, then a second.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she throws herself through the door. Her knife flashes. Red trails along green.

“Go, Pidge!” Hunk shouts, planting himself in the doorway. “We’ll hold the line!”

She crashes past the row of cells. “Matt! Matt— “

She sees him, sees him curled in a ball on a floor covered in moldy straw, eyes shining in the purple firelight. He sits up as she shouts, wariness and confusion fighting for control of his face. “Matt!”

The blade, still stained with blood, glints as it cuts. The magic Altean metal cleaves the lock. The black bars drag open, scratching furrows in the dirt along the floor.

“Katie.”

His voice. It’s his voice, raw and quiet as it is. She kneels next to him, swiping the sleeve of her tunic across her eyes. “Yeah, Matt. It’s me. I’m here.”

His fingers reach for her, brushing against her face. “How…?”

“A lot happened,” she says, but her eyes are already combing his body for wounds. His face is laced with a nasty cut across his cheek and towards his jawbone. “Can you stand?”

A fire lights in his gaze. His body tenses, and he hauls himself to his feet. She wedges herself underneath his arm to prop him up.

“Hall’s clear, Pidge!” Lance’s voice echoes through the stone room. “I think they’re retreating!”

“Retreating?” The word hisses out of Matt’s mouth as if he doesn’t understand its meaning. “This is a Galran fortress.”

“Yeah,” Pidge grins. “I told you a lot happened. Though I wasn’t sure Shiro, Allura, and Keith could chase them out so quickly.”

Matt leans on her shoulder, and Pidge presses a kiss to his tangled hair. “Come on. Let me introduce you to my friends.”

~

_ Keith _

Keith’s blood is burning. It rushes, howling in his ears as he lunges forward. The deep red blade in his hands has a fierce bite, and it is thirsty for blood —

“Keith!”

A voice cuts through the storming noise in his head.

“Keith! It’s over!”

The inferno, the anger swells in him again, trying to smother the screaming. Victory or death — he must keep going until the only thumping pulse is his, until the kingdom that spawned him bows on bended knee before Allura. He can see it, a red sword against Zarkon’s exposed throat, tracing a line across the veins in his neck—

“Keith!”

A hand hits his shoulder, grabbing him, pulling him forward. He hears the lion blade clatter to the stones below. The haze over his vision lifts, and a man stands before him, singed and bloodied, but with kindness in his eyes.

“Shiro?”

“Easy, Keith. It’s done. You’re safe.”

Keith sighs as the pounding of his pulse slows. “Thanks, Shiro.”

A small smile graces Shiro’s face, and Keith finds himself returning it. He stoops to collect his sword, but staggers as a sharp pain flares in his side. His vision frosts over for a moment as he catches himself.

“Woah, easy. You’re wounded. Come on, let’s get you back to Pidge.” Shiro pulls Keith’s arm over his shoulder, holding him up.

They’re still in the fortress, in the tight tunnels lit by the harsh light of purple torches. The lack of tension in Shiro’s shoulders means that they’ve won. While Keith’s mind raged, they routed their enemy.

“How is she?” Keith rasps. “Did she find…?”

As much as Pidge tries to pretend that she is here to steal herbs from the Galran supply stores, he knows she’s here for something else. Someone else. Shiro only grins in response.

“Good.” Keith hates how weak he sounds, how weak he always sounds when he is pulled from a rage. He fights as their enemy does. He strikes sharp, vicious, merciless. Steeped in hatred.

They deserve his hatred. They deserve it for what they’ve done. Splitting families, razing cities, they deserve every drop of his rage and bile but —

Shiro doesn’t. Shiro and Allura and Coran and the other paladins don’t deserve the heat of his smoldering rage. He shouldn’t need Shiro to reach out, to drag him back to lucidity.

The hall is claustrophobic, the dark walls tightening in around him. He presses closer to Shiro and clenches his jaw. His leg throbs with pain.

“Thank you, Keith.”

Keith winces as he turns to stare at Shiro in confusion. “What for?”

“For fighting with us.”

“Oh...you’re welcome.”

It’s not something that he deserves thanks for. It’s what he should do, what he had to do, even before he learned that the violence of Galran blood runs in his veins. He’ll gladly give his strength to them. He only hopes that, when the smoke clears and the wounds heal, the anger will fade.

His new family doesn’t deserve his unbridled wrath.

 


End file.
